Lonely
by A11y50n
Summary: Jane thought she knew what it was like to be lonely especially when she came out of the bag but now she truly knows what it's like even though she's surrounded by people.


**A/N: This idea came to me and I just had to write it. I honestly don't know if there will be another chapter or not.**

Lonely

Jane remembered coming out of the bag and not having any memories. She remembered feeling cold and confused. She also remembered feeling lonely. Even though everyone was nice to her, she wasn't their friend she was their case. Weller tried as did Patterson and Zapata. Reade resented that Weller was 'different' around her not that she had any influence on him as far as she knew. But she was still lonely, if she was meek and didn't demand to go into the filed with them then they wouldn't have given her a second look but she wasn't and they did. She was constantly surrounded by people in those days but still inherently alone. She didn't have the easy friendship as Patterson and Zapata did. She didn't have the familial one like Weller, Sarah and Sawyer did. She didn't even have the working relationship like the team had amongst themselves and with Mayfair. She had nothing, always trying to find her way without infringing on others'. At least that what she thought until she came back. On bad days she actually wished she was back at the black site, at least she could cope with the torture, she was trained for it, she knew what to expect but being ignored by the people who were once your friends, no family, that was a type of torture that she wasn't trained for and that was breaking her in small ways every single day. She knew she deserved it, she knew it wasn't going to be easy working with them again especially after all that she'd done. She didn't even forgive herself for Mayfair's death so how could they? She wanted to cry so much. Every moment of every day she wanted to cry. Cry for everything that she lost, which was her own fault. The only thing that was keeping her together was the thought of taking Sandstorm down then after she would just disappear and they could forget that she ever existed. She was looking forward to the endless darkness that was waiting for her.

The first time it happened, she knew it was deliberate, she knew she was being baited in a way but she did nothing. She was at her computer and Zapata was close enough to her so she didn't need to shout and could be heard clearly.

"Weller, let me grab Patterson and we can head to the bar for some drinks, Reade is already in the locker room!"

She knew Zapata wanted her to hear, wanted her to hear that they were going out and that she was not invited. She hunched her shoulders and just hoped that they couldn't see her.

"It will be good for the team to relax together." Declared Zapata

It became a frequent thing, after every case they would go out and celebrate making a point to speak in front of her to let her know that she wasn't a part of the team anymore. She did actually think about being anywhere away from the bull pen when it was time for them to leave, she could time it if they were interrogating a suspect or even just doing paperwork so she could be anywhere else but there was a part of her that liked being ignored. She liked being punished because she deserved it so she stubbornly stayed there and didn't react at all each and every time 'the team' went out.

The snide comments appeared not to affect her, she let them wash over her or at least that's what she did while at work. When she arrived back at her safe house as soon as the front door closed then the tears would start, slowly at first, one, two then they would cascade down her cheeks. She couldn't see for the tears so just made her way to her bedroom and collapsed on her bed, well sleeping bag really. Why should she eat, she didn't deserve to. She only needed enough to be physically capable; anything else was her being gluttonous. So she ate a banana for breakfast and whatever stale bagel or doughnut she could find at the office. She never went for the fresh ones, she didn't deserve them. They hated her so much. She thought in time that maybe their hostility would abate but it didn't. She willingly took any assignment that she was given regardless of the risks; she had to make it up to them. She would do so in any way possible. The only one that was halfway decent to her was Nas but she knew Nas was just using her but it sometimes it felt nice that there was a person being relatively nice to her, even though she knew it was for her own gain and she knew Nas didn't really care if she lived or died from the weekly suicidal missions but it still felt nice.

Patterson was just staring into her drink, she hadn't taken a sip yet, she couldn't. She stood up and the others just looked at her.

"I can't do this!"

"Do you want a different drink?" asked Reade

Patterson looked at each face around the table and shook her head sadly.

"No. I can't keep treating Jane like this…"

"Like what? We're not doing anything to her plus she's the reason why Mayfair's dead!"

"We're bullying her!"

"No we're not!" replied Zapata

"Yes, we are! We're doing it passively aggressively! Not inviting her to these team nights…."

"She's not part of our team!" said Reade

"Really? So you'll use her to cover your backs but you won't have a drink with her?"

"She's lucky that we let her work with us!" said Zapata

"Oh please! We never bring her anything from our coffee runs…"

"That's not true!" said Zapata

"Oh yeah, I forgot, when you do bring stuff back it's things that you know she won't eat or drink. Like the time you bought four double chocolate muffins and one blueberry when you know she doesn't like fruit in baked goods because of the texture and even though you love blueberry muffins, you would eat the chocolate one!"

"When I crave chocolate, I eat chocolate!"

"You're a mean girl. I was treated like crap in high school and now I've become a mean girl, me! I'm disgusted with myself that I let it go on for as long as I have. We used to be a family, we were her only family, her only friends and this is what we've come to? Are all of you blind? She's punishing herself and we're adding to it. I'm telling you, the day she dies, which could be any day now at the rate that she's going, if any of you even think of showing any compassion, don't you even think about doing it in front of me! I'm done! Don't invite me out again until you're ready to forgive Jane, you are all so blind, and you don't even know what she's been through. See you tomorrow!"

There was silence after Patterson left. Weller hadn't said one word during the whole discussion, he just sat there with his hand around his glass, listening. He knew he wasn't being the 'team leader' that he should be but he couldn't stop. He got some pleasure in seeing the others mistreat Jane. They never got physical; he would step in if they did, wouldn't he? Although he never got in between Zapata and Jane when they would spar, he knew Jane held back, she let Zapata pummel her, she never followed through with any of her punches but Zapata always went for Jane in the gym. He remembered the last time that the two women sparred, Jane was on the floor and Zapata was on top of her punching her and Jane just laid there taking it. Zapata kept on with her punches, He and Reade stumbled on them by chance and he didn't hesitate he literally picked the small feisty agent up off of Jane and pushed her towards Reade who was standing there in shock.

"Go and cool off!" stated Kurt

He remembered walking behind Reade and Zapata to make sure she made it to the locker room; he didn't even pause to look at Jane. He remembered he felt guilty that night. He didn't even bother to see if she was ok, his focus was only on Zapata.

The next morning Patterson had decoded another tattoo and everyone traipsed into the lab and listened to Patterson.

"…so Weller, you and Jane will have to go undercover and pretend to be the married couple to infiltrate…"

"Let's hope the wife isn't a black widow if not we'll never see Weller again!" stated Zapata

There was silence in the lab. Jane froze. Tasha knew that she went too far, she tried to keep her mouth shut but failed. She wanted to apologise but didn't. Patterson looked like she wanted to kill her thought Zapata. Reade just had his mouth open in shock and Weller just stood there.

"I can't go undercover with Weller." Stated Jane

"Why not?" asked Patterson still glaring at Zapata

"Aren't the couple supposed to be newlyweds? There's no way we could pass for newlyweds, a couple going through an acrimonious divorce, yes, newlyweds no! So either you or Zapata will need to be Weller's 'wife'…" to which both Zapata and Patterson screwed up their noses, which would have been funny in different circumstances. "… or one of the female agents in the bullpen can do it." Jane said as she walked out of the lab.

Weller went undercover with a junior agent seeing as neither Zapata nor Patterson thought that they could pull it off as they thought of him as a brother not a lover, something he agreed with. He hated going undercover with someone else, Jane had been his partner for such a long time that they didn't even need to speak to each other to know what the other wanted or needed but with this new agent things were stilted and to be frank, he was surprised that they weren't made. They didn't infiltrate the group, the person that they needed to meet either wasn't there or took one look at them and left, it was three hours wasted with innate small talk and dancing. The agent didn't feel comfortable with him and he thought it showed, if it was Jane it would have been smooth and he was sure that they would have made contact.

He began to look at Jane, really look. Patterson started to bring her things when she went for a coffee run, at first Patterson would leave it on her desk when Jane was away from it but Kurt saw Jane stop and look at the baked goods each and every time she found one on her desk. He noticed that her clothes hung from her. She never liked the baggy look but now her clothes looked baggy on her. He saw the dark circles under her eyes and if he wasn't mistaken she must have lost quite some bit of weight which was concerning as she wasn't overweight to begin with. What was heart-breaking was the fact that Jane would always pick up the muffin or whatever treat Patterson bought for her and would take it to the break room and place it on the plate with the doughnuts or bagels and take a stale one instead, he swore he saw her take one from the wastebasket once. Is that what they drove her to? Did she honestly think that she didn't deserve to eat anything fresh? He was almost sick right there and then when he saw that but did he change his behaviour towards her? No, he didn't.

Kurt watched as Patterson tried to bond with Jane but Jane couldn't or didn't want to accept the friendship that Patterson was offering. He watched as Jane flinched away each and every time Patterson touched her or tried to, this was Patterson, who didn't; who probably couldn't even hurt a fly and Jane was scared of her. What had they done to her, he wondered.

Patterson cracked another tattoo so the team was on the hunt for their latest suspect and they came under fire in the building Patterson directed them to. They all took at least one perp out but there were more, they were coming under heavy fire. Jane took out a couple more. There were a few above them, she aimed and reached up and took her shot but not before she felt a pain in her lower abdomen where her vest had ridden up, she stumbled for a moment then quickly regrouped to take out someone who was going to shoot Weller in the back. When he saw her face him with her gun he didn't doubt her for a second, when the bullet raced past him and he turned to see the shock look on the gunman's face he realised how close he came to losing his life and it was only due to Jane's quick reflexes that he was still standing. Taking out the rest of the bad guys was easier now, once there were only three left they surrendered and were arrested.

"Were you hurt?" Kurt asked Jane after their suspects were taken away.

"No."

"You need to get checked out."

"Fine."

It was easy to evade the medical check, Kurt didn't hover while she was being examined, he did that before but not now, now he didn't care so when she got back to the NYO, she just went to the restroom and wiped the blood that was seeping from her bullet wound and just managed to contain the bleeding, thankfully it was late so she left as soon as the three suspects gave up everything that they knew which wasn't much and didn't take long. She left the building, she didn't have to let anyone know although they all noticed, and they usually left before she did but that night she was the first. She grabbed her stuff and didn't look back.

At the safe house, Jane made her way to the bathroom and managed to get the bullet out and she bandaged herself. She collapsed onto her sleeping bag, the next thing she knew it was time for her to go to the office.

The day was a paperwork day and she was kind of glad, she wasn't 100% so sitting down and completing paperwork was heaven. She didn't exchange one word with anyone, not that they tried to include her in anything, well apart from Patterson who had recently started to talk to her. At the end of the day she went back to her place, she'd been too tired to have her usual breakfast of a banana and she forgot to grab a bagel, she just wanted her sleeping bag, her head was starting to pound and she wanted to sleep. She went to her room, took all her clothes off bar her underwear and went into her sleeping bag and fell asleep straight away.

"Where's Jane?" Kurt asked

The rest of the team just shrugged their shoulders. Kurt looked at his watch, Jane was usually the first one there but it was already 9 am, he'd give her a couple more hours, she was looking a little pale yesterday.

11 am came and went and still no word from Jane. Kurt was beginning to worry, there was something niggling at the back of his mind but he couldn't put his finger on it. By 1 pm he was officially worried and he wasn't the only one. He saw Patterson with her cell to her ear every few minutes and he saw the looks Zapata and Reade exchanged.

"Zapata, Reade with me!" Kurt said as he left his office.

They didn't have to ask where they were going; the tension in the SUV was palpable. Kurt gave the keys to Zapata; she would get them there the fastest, maybe not in one piece but definitely the fastest.

They arrived and all three had their weapons in their hands as soon as they exited the vehicle. Kurt knocked on the door several times. Reade tried her cell and they could hear it ring. They all looked at each other and nodded. Kurt unlocked the door and just by looks it was clear that Kurt was going to clear the upstairs while the others would do downstairs. Kurt took two steps up at a time. He had to stop himself from rushing to the bedroom where he instinctively knew that was where Jane was to clear the rooms before it. He methodically cleared each room, when he got to her bedroom he pushed the door open slowly not too sure what he was going to find. What he did find shocked him.

"ZAPATA!"

He holstered his weapon and quickly went to Jane's side. She was face down in her sleeping bag, he actually thought that she was dead until he placed his fingers on her neck and felt a weak pulse. He let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding, and then he heard Zapata's gasp as well as Reade's footsteps.

"Help me turn her. She's burning up; she must have the flu or something."

Zapata knew he was talking to her. She quickly rushed to her other side and the heat that she could feel coming from Jane scared her. She helped Weller turn her, they were shocked to see blood coming from the bandage and they could see that it had soaked into the sleeping bag.

"It must be infected. Call for an ambulance. NOW!"

Kurt moved the hair from her face, Zapata brought him a cold wash cloth and he began to wipe Jane's face.

"I found the bullet in her wastebasket."

"She was supposed to get checked out!" said Kurt

Neither Reade nor Zapata had anything to say. They waited for the ambulance. Kurt rode in with her but she was still unresponsive. Reade called Patterson and told her what they found; she was going to meet them at the hospital.

Patterson found them in the waiting room; their body language said it all. Zapata had tears rolling down her cheek, Reade kept on rubbing his face but Kurt just sat and stared ahead.

"What happened?" asked Patterson

No one spoke; Patterson was going to ask again when Reade started to talk.

"We called her cell and heard it ring then Weller unlocked her door, we cleared downstairs while he did upstairs. He called Zapata soon after he went upstairs, I followed…."

"What?" whispered Patterson

"…She was face down in a sleeping bag…"

"Sleeping bag?" said a confused Patterson

"Yeah, she didn't even have a bed, just the sleeping bag, in the whole house. She was face down, the bruises that were on her back as well as the burns…"

Patterson started to cry.

"…then Zapata and Weller turned her over and I could count her ribs, she looked like one of those people you see on those charity adverts, her underwear looked big on her. No one's underwear should be too big. The once white bandage was red. Just red with her blood. The sleeping bag also had blood in it. Weller ordered and ambulance, I called for one but we just stared at Jane after that. Her back was bad but the front was even worse, even more bruises and burns, we couldn't stop looking. She didn't have anything else in her safe house. It was so bare. Homeless people have more than her. It was so stark and depressing."

"You knew!" said Kurt

Patterson was shocked.

"How did you find out?"

Patterson took a deep breath.

"I hated what we'd become. This isn't us. Since when are we the tormentors? I was bullied in high school now I've become the bully, no, just no. When I got home after the last time we went out I had an encrypted email. I knew that I would need the computers at the NYO so I went back to work and managed to read the email."

"What did it say?"

"'I'm disappointed. Friendship is about being there during the good times as well as the bad times.' That's what it said and there was an attachment. It was as if we were being watched and as soon as the person saw what they wanted to then they sent the email."

"So we're being watched?" asked Zapata

"It would appear so."

"Who sent it to you?" asked Kurt

"A…friend."

"Would you like to try that one more time without lying to us this time?" said Kurt

"A friend!" Patterson said with more confidence

Kurt was going to demand a proper answer when Reade piped up.

"What was in the attachment?"

"How she got all those scars and burns."

They were quiet while the waited for the doctor to come and see them, each of them reflecting on their recent behaviour.

"Why didn't she say anything to us?" asked Zapata

Patterson gave her an incredulous look.

"Are you kidding me? Why would she confide in us? She told us everything when she came back when she was interrogated but what did we do? Ignore her. We didn't even give her a chance to explain herself; she was arrested and sent to the CIA. The CIA, where she was tortured for three months and if that wasn't bad enough, we treat her like a traitor, yes she made mistakes, we have all made mistakes, each and every one of us have. She was our friend, our sister. Kurt, I know you were hurt the most, she wore her heart in her eyes, she loved you, and you have to believe that. She could have started a relationship with you, you had feelings for her as well but something stopped her and it wasn't because she didn't feel anything for you. She loved you and you can't tell me any different! But how did she feel coming to work every day being ignored by the people she once called family? If that wasn't bad enough the only person that was halfway decent to her was the one that kept on sending her on suicidal missions and she had to watch that person become your girlfriend! You're actually sitting here thinking she should have confided in us? Really?"

Silence reigned again while they waited each once again in their private thoughts. Kurt, Zapata and Reade couldn't get the image of her in her sleeping bag out of their minds; they just saw her bruised and battered body.


End file.
